Somewhere there is a dimension and universe where I am drunk at home and hosing down zombies with a flamethrower and listening to this album over and over and over and over.

I submit that the core fusion-reactor-type power of Swedish Melodic Death Metal (TM) is its ability to take awful horrible painful sensibilities and stare them down and transfigure them into a purpose. At worst, you end up with lyrically feckless mush about marshes and candles and the moon on her snow white skin. At best, you get this odious, elegant, brooding, undying album as a throwback to Stockholm’s not too distant glory days. If you’re looking for a purpose in darkness, the thing to do is build a church to it!!(?)